I See Myself In You
by TeeLee123
Summary: When she told me she didn't kill him, I believed her. I believed her. . .
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I never add these but for this story I felt I should. I don't own Dragonball/z/gt or it's characters, if I did, adult Trunks would've had some nude scenes instead of Goku. I'm just a Dragonball Otaku.

**Teelee123:** Hi. For once, I've written a story rated M for sexual themes and Violence and other disturbing stuff. Not for anyone under 16.

* * *

We need to eat.

I lie awake in bed, listening to the loud sex noises coming from the room next door. "Ah, fuck." One man would groan, while the other man would grunt like a pig as he fucked my mom. She's a good actress, screaming and moaning as if she enjoys it. Maybe the men know she's faking, but don't care. Wait, I forgot. In this city she is my big sister, not my Mom. Her name isn't Videl, it's Lori. My name isn't Pan either. I'm. . . I'm, Cassie? No, that wasn't it. Cora? No that wasn't it either. Damn, I'll just have to ask Mom when she comes home.

Home.

I sigh. Is that what this motel room is, home? It's today's home but what about tomorrow, or the next day, or a year from now? Will we ever stay in one place long enough for me to make friends, for people to know that I exist, or for us to actually live in a place called a house?

I turn my head to the side to look at the part of the ceiling lit by the lamp on the table. Half of the ceiling is bright and white, while the other half is a dark shadow. I lift my finger towards the ceiling and slowly move it to the shadows."That's Mom."

I point my finger at the bright lightbulb of the table lamp and slowly glide forward, stopping on the line between the light and shadows." That's me."

Mom and I both started out pure, like the lightbulb, but the shadows slowly began to draw us in. For as long as I can remember, Mom had always lived in the shadows. The only proof I have that she was ever pure is inside the locket I always wear. It's my most treasured possession, my only possession. For reasons I don't understand, Mom doesn't like having our pictures taken. Only in the locket are we immortal, unchanging, and free.

My thumb gently caresses the smooth gold texture of the heart-shaped locket. There's writing on the front, framed by pink leaves that says," Beside every Saiyaman is a Saiyawoman."

Mom wont tell me what it means, in her opinion, the past is better left in the past. She never gets angry when I bring it up. She'd just smile or laugh at the joke only she could understand and say_," Your father was a corny nerd, but I loved him."_

I open the locket to stare at the two pictures. In the left frame of the locket is a picture of Mom and Dad when they were teenagers. Dad had a wide smile, not caring that the white do rag on his head made him look like a geek. Mom stood next to him, clinging to his arm, smiling, wearing a white tank top and a pink shirt underneath. Mom told me they were about to fight in a tournament, but wouldn't tell me more than that. Of course, no wonder they looked happy. Fighting must run in the family. I'm happiest when I fight too.

The picture on the right has all three of us together. Dad is kissing Mom's cheek while Mom stares into the camera, practically glowing with happiness . I'm cradled in her arms, wrapped in a pink blanket as I sleep, snug and secure in the presence of both my parents. . . perhaps thinking how lucky I was to be born in a loving family.

I snap the locket shut, suddenly noticing the sex noises have ended, it's completely quiet.

I roll on my side so I'm facing towards the door. In my mind I imagine her wiping away any mess left behind on her thighs, face, and lower back. She laughs and pretends they were the best she'd ever had. They purr and promise to use her services again. She hands out her hand for the one thousand zeni promised to her.

Judging by the loud sound of someone's head being bashed into the wall, I know that the so called men didn't want to pay her. That happens a lot. They think they can rip her off the moment she tells them she doesn't have a pimp and is willing to wait until after to be paid. 'Take the money up front' is rule number two on the list of unwritten street rules, right next to rule number one, 'Never trust anyone.'

I wonder if her clients would try to rip her off if they knew she was the daughter of Mr. Satan, the world's strongest fighter? I'm guessing it would make things more complicated, not easier.

I quickly shut my eyes as Mom sticks her key through the lock and opens the door, which she slams behind her.

"Shit."

I force myself not to smile, knowing Mom is standing still because she thinks it will somehow help in not waking me up. She shouldn't have slammed the door, she probably woke up everybody in the Motel, if her fake orgasm hadn't already done the job. I guess if you're going to do something, might as well do it right and go all out.

Mom tosses her purse on the table, the key chain clanks loudly against the small table.

"Shit."

She holds her breath, hoping I wont wake up.I force myself to breathe normally, steadily, as if I really were sleeping. I'm not going to wake up. It's always awkward looking at her when she comes back from her job. Her long wig is always a mess and she smells like sex. Her blue eyes always look shameful, mournful, and full of regret. I know she does it because we need the money, we need to eat, we need to pay for the gas in the car and the expenses of sleeping in a bed tonight. I know this, but I can't keep the disappointment from my eyes, so it's better if I keep them closed, and pretend she isn't a whore.

I don't want to hurt you Mom, so I will keep sleeping. I wont wake up tonight. This never happened, you just went next door to have a beer with a friend, like you told me.

Mom unzips her boots and throws them against the front door. I imagine her wincing since she doesn't curse this time. Perhaps, she's thinking I'm a heavy sleeper like Dad was, like she so often tells me.

She removes her leather jacket, skirt, panties and bra. My eyebrows furrow as she stuffs her clothes in the 'dirty clothes' plastic bag. In the beginning, she used to burn her clothes or throw them away. I wish she would still do that instead of keeping them, washing them, and wearing them again.

Completely naked, Mom digs through the backpack at the end of the bed. After finding her pajamas she flicks on the light in the bathroom. I automatically snuggle deep in my blanket to keep the annoying light out of my eyes, which is still bright beneath my closed lids.

Mom turns the shower on, tests the water, then closes the door. She may not burn her clothes anymore, but at least she takes hour-long showers and vigorously scrubs her skin to the point it turns red, but I have a feeling. . . the longer we live like this, Mom will stop that too. I know Mom is falling. When she hits the bottom, she wont be the same person anymore. She'll be broken, and nothing on this Earth will be able to fix her.

I don't realise I had fallen asleep until Mom hops into bed with me. I rub my eyes but don't open them, I'm too tired to. Mom hums a song as she gently brushes the bangs from my face. My toes curl from her touch. I have a keen sense of smell, better than any normal person's. Mom has told me I get if from Dad, he had super hearing and a great sense of smell too. I can smell the cheap one zeni conditioner in her hair, the strong perfume of the soap, and the linen scented deodorant she had applied over her armpits. Those smells are okay, but I wish I couldn't smell the light scent of the two men she had been with earlier.

Mom goes quiet. I am on the edge of a deep sleep when I feel Mom's hands gently opening the locket around my neck. She stares at the pictures for a while, then closes it. I know we're thinking the same thing. . . what would Dad think if he saw how we're living?

**~ * * ( = ^ - ^ = ) * * ~**

**Part + Two **

We leave the motel room by 8 a.m.

Still tired from last night's activities, Mom sits in the passenger seat while I drive the hover car. Instead of driving out of town like Mom wanted, I pull into a diner on the outskirts of town. I turn off the ignition to silence the car so Mom can hear the loud growling of my stomach.

Mom laughs." You're just like your father. He had a bottomless pit for a stomach too." A hover van parks next to us as we get out. The driver- - a woman with over eight kids, removes her sunglasses and stops me before I can go into the diner.

"Girl, were you just driving?"

"Um. . ." I look to Mom, but she's holding the door open, looking as lost as I am.". . .yeah, so?"

The woman stares at me as her eight kids run past us and into the diner." But you're just a child, you're too young to drive!"

"Actually, I'm eighteen ma'am." I lie.

The woman raises a skeptical eyebrow. I'm not a good liar- - a trait Mom says I get from my Dad- - and this woman knows it. The woman joins her kids in the diner and says nothing more while ignoring Mom's cold glare. Mom purposefully has us sit in a booth on the opposite end of the diner, where she can eye the woman without being noticed. Mom is in a defensive mode, I don't understand why, but she always gets like this when someone begins to suspect something is strange about us.

"Videl," I whisper. Mom doesn't look at me, she continues to watch the woman, whom keeps looking over her shoulder to keep an eye on us too. I rip a piece of paper from the straw wrapper and stick it in the end of the straw. I aim for Mom's neck, then blow into the straw. Mom catches the wad with two fingers. " Awww. You weren't supposed to catch it Videl."

Mom turns her body, so she's facing the table, and looks down at her cup of coffee." Pan, I'm Lori in this town, remember?"

"I have to call you Videl, and I need you to call me Pan. I'm afraid I'll forget my name," I fidget with the straw wrapper in my hands." I've already forgotten how old I am."

"You're Corey Shichi. A thirteen year old girl; my little sister."

"Why can't I just be Pan? Why do we always have to hide who we are?" Just when I think Mom is finally going to tell me the answer, the waitress brings us our food. The nosey woman and her eight kids, and everyone else in the diner, are surprised by the amount of food the waitress sets on the table. Mom ordered a plate of pancakes and coffee. I ordered a plate of pancakes, the early bird special, a bowl of oatmeal, an omlet, three bowls of soup, a BLT, and twelve glasses of orange juice.

When the waitress leaves, I lean forward so only Mom can hear me." Can you at least tell me how old I am?"

Mom smiles, taking a bite of my BLT." Isn't it obvious?" I patiently wait for her to chew and swallow her food." You're fifteen."

**~ * * ( = ^ - ^ = ) * * ~**

**Part + Three**

My head lolls against the window.

"Pan, don't lean against the door." I hear Mom growl. I can't respond, I'm too sleepy to. The sound of Mom locking all the doors is the last thing I hear before falling asleep.

_I'm in a room I haven't been in for years, in the arms of the man I haven't seen in ages. I know he's my father, he's the only man I know who can look upon me with love, not lust like Mom's clients do. He loves me, but looks frustrated since I'm adamant about not going to sleep. His voice and eyes plead for me to go to sleep while my own eyes wander around the room and my fingers twitch defiantly. I'm too energetic to sleep, which Mom tells him when she comes into the room. Dad sighs, then sets me in my crib. I can tell he doesn't want to leave me alone in the dark but Mom playfully pushes him out the door anyway. They leave me alone, with only my glowing fish tank and goldfish for company._

My eyes snap open and I jerk forward in my seat, startling Mom.

"What's the matter?" She asks, quickly taking her eyes away from the road to scan over me. I blink twice, but I can still feel my father's touch on my skin. Mom's face solemns." Was it. . . one of _those dreams_ again?"

Those dreams, the dreams filled with tails, monkeys, men with glowing blond hair and strange glowing light that forms in the palms. I enjoy those dreams , especially the ones where I'm sparring with someone of equal or greater strength. I made the mistake of telling Mom about those dreams once, and she put me on strong sleeping pills to keep those dreams away._ "They're not normal," She told me._

"No. I was just dreaming about fish." I tell her, settling back against my chair. I'm still tired, but I'm too afraid to fall asleep. I don't see why, it was a perfectly tame dream, but it unnerves me just the same.

Not enjoying the silence like I am, Mom turns on the radio. She curses, we're too far away from the nearest town to get a signal from a music station.

Preferring silence to the static, Mom turns the radio off.

I chuckle." So, which town are we headed for this time?"

Mom doesn't look at me as she answers." Satan City."

Satan City? _The_ Satan City, the one Mom refuses to speak of? The one at the top of the list of cities to never go near? " But. . . Grandpa lives there."

She nods." I know. I think it's time you met him." She reaches for her purse and hands it to me.

I open the purse and sigh. There's a long red wig for her, and a short brown wig for me, along with two I.D's and birth certificates. I frown at my I.D." Uhh, I think your guy messed up."

"No, Sharpener got it right." She replies cooly." Your name is Peter; my fifteen year old son."

I nod glumly and set to work memorizing my name, age, her name, and our back story. Four hours later, as we drive into Satan City, I don on the wig, sweater and baggy jeans, settling into my role as Peter, wondering when our never-ending game of pretend will end.


	2. Chapter 2

We arrive in Satan City a few hours after noon.

"Wow." I whisper, rowing down my window so I can hear the traffic noises, taste the air, and look out at the tall buildings better.

Without the finger smudges on the window blurring my view, the city looks incredible. I'd never seen a place with thousands of people and cars, and highways with more than four lanes merging together with other highways on ramps above and below us.

" Mom, can I drive? Please? This looks fun!"

"Absolutely not," Mom chuckles, not glancing away from the road. I can tell by the way she's clutching the steering wheel that she's nervous, not excited like I am." Grab some moist towelettes from the glovebox and wipe your finger prints off the window, Pan. You know better."

I move sluggishly as if it were the most difficult chore to do. This is the reason why I normally wear long sleeves instead of short sleeves. It's better to touch things using my long sleeves as gloves, otherwise Mom will spend an insane amount of time throughly cleaning everything I touch. For as long as I remember she's told me never to leave finger prints, palm prints, or lip prints behind, we must always wipe down everything we touch. I think she's a germaphobe.

"They're not in the glovebox," I tell her, slamming the glove box shut.

"Check in the back seat, in the front pocket of my bag."

I unbuckle my seat belt and stretch into the backseat, tossing the laundry bag on the floor while I struggle to lift my bag off of hers.

A loud siren wails from behind our car.

I stop breathing and my fingers release the gold zipper I was about to pull. Mom curses. Her foot automatically steps off the accelerator, slowing our pace.

Go around us, go around us, go around us. . . .

The flashing lights come closer to our car. The siren becomes louder, sounding more like a robotic scream. I groan, fall back into my seat, and cover my ears. Having acute hearing like a dog isn't always a good thing. Mom thinks it's cute when she sees a dog howling at sirens. . I used to think it was cute too, but I'd never been this close to a siren before. Now I understand why dogs howl, I want to howl myself to make the ringing in my ears go away!

"Shit." Mom glances in her rearview mirror, then punches the steering wheel." He's not going around me."

My eyes widen.

It's because of me. This is my fault! I should've kept my seatbelt on and stayed in my seat! Now Mom and I are going to go to jail!

"Put your seatbelt on," Mom orders, the orange needle on the speedometer rises with the steadily roaring engine.

"Mom what are you doing!" I shout, glancing back at the car behind us which is growing smaller by the second. " You're going to get us in trouble!"

Mom passes the white car in front of us, its loud horn becoming weaker as Mom runs it off the road in order to catch the ramp on our right.

A pretty red sports car blares it's horn on my side. The driver drops his cell phone, through his tinted windshield I can see the bright glare of his teeth as he screams.

He can't stop.

He's going too fast, and we're going too fast. In his eyes, I can see the accident he knows will happen. Metal and glass will crunch, air bags will deploy, and cars will flip multiple times on the asphalt. None of us will make it.

A familiar, warm energy tells me not to be afraid. And I'm not.

Guided by the energy, I lean out the window, stretch out my hand and tap the front of the red sports car with my palm. In slow motion, my eyes widen and I watch the metal of the hood retract like an accordion, deploying the airbag which saves the man from the glass that spills from his windshield. His screams are constant and grows louder as his car flips over us, then the power leaves me. Sound and motion resumes louder and quicker like it had been before.

I'm thrown back and tumble across the seat into Mom's shoulder. She grits her teeth from the stinging force of my bony body, but doesn't take her eyes or hands off the steering wheel. She's determined to make this sharp U-turn without flipping, though she's taking most of the road.

Unable to move under the sharp force of Mom trying to make the turn, I watch helplessly as an oncoming car honks his horn and drives off the road to avoid crashing into us. I swear I can feel the right side of the car rise in the air, but it happens so fast I'm not don't slow as we merge into the new traffic. More cars honk, breaks squeak, and I think someone takes out our left tail light.

**~ * * ( = ^_^=) * * ~**

Mom continues to speed until she's certain the police officer isn't following us, then steadily begins to slow down.

Both of us are trembling, and I know Mom will stop somewhere deserted to park and rest. This isn't the first time we've run from a police officer, but it was our first time running from a police cruiser. After causing more than one wreck, I never want to do it again! Hopefully no one was badly hurt because of us.

Mom parks in between two large cars by a beach. It isn't deserted, there are a lot of families here, but it's the closest thing we'll find that's safe. Deserted places are rare in a thriving city like this I guess.

Mom turns off the ignition. We sit in silence, both of us wishing we could live like the families on the beach- - happy and free.

I open my mouth to ask Mom once more why we can't be normal, why can't we live in one spot, and why we have to always run and pretend we're different people, but Mom turns to me, her fearful expression keeps me from asking my questions. There's something important she wants to say. My childish questions will have to wait, again.

"How did you do that?" She whispers.

I raise my palms to my face, remembering how I lightly tapped that car but was able to crush it anyway. I smile, and my body trembles in excitement, remembering the rush and amazing power I felt when it happened.

" I didn't know I could do that! Wasn't that cool Mom? Did you see it? That car was about to crash into us but I stopped it. Can you believe it? _I_ stopped it! It was so cool all I did was touch it and bam! Oh, I hope that guy is okay. Do you think- -"

I trail off.

Mom isn't happy. Her face is paler than I'd ever seen it. There are dark circles under her eyes, from the lack of sleep, and a small amount of blood oozes from her lip where she must've bitten it during our get away. I'm sure if I lifted her hand, I'd see the design of the steering wheel cover impressed into her skin. It's amazing she didn't rip out the steering wheel with the way she gripped it, or at least crushed it like I probably would've.

I lick my thumb and wipe the blood from her lips.

"I wont do it again Mom, I promise."

She says nothing as I continue to dab away the blood from her lips and clean the smeared eyeliner around the edges of her eyes.

"We need a new car." Mom says, her blue eyes darting past my head to the cars parked around us in the parking lot.

"Can I choose this time?" I ask, repositioning her red wig.

Mom exhales through her nose.

"Sure, just don't pick anything red."

**In the next Chapter:**

**Mr. Satan finally meets his granddaughter, but doesn't appreciate her pocketing valuable possessions to sell on the street. Videl leaves to visit an old friend, but doesn't come back. Pan refuses to believe her mother abandoned her and wanders the streets looking for her, only to meet someone she doesn't know she's related to.**


End file.
